'Things Have Gone Too Far When the Galleries Complain About the Course'

Summary

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THERE IS a particular form of golfing hypochondria that afflicts many on tour. It takes the form of persistent grumbling about pretty much everything to do with the way courses are set up in major championships, about length of rough, about speed of greens, about positioning of flags, about lots of things. Most of the time it's best to ignore the belly-aching but there are occasions when the complaints cannot be dismissed so easily. And the PGA championship, winding its way to a low-key conclusion, is one of them.

This has been an ugly major, the runt of the season. It's a tournament that's been hard to engage with, partly because of the sorry absence of the one man who can be relied on to electrify things (Kenny Perry. Oops, sorry, Tiger Woods), partly because of the morose faces on the put-upon golfers in the locker-room - you felt like giving Padraig Harrington a slap on Friday when he spoke about his lack of focus and his wandering mind and his all-round weariness post-Birkdale - and partly because of the deathly silence all around Oakland Hills, a by-product of a golf course that has been presented by the PGA of America clearly with some help from the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

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Extract

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'Things Have Gone Too Far When the Galleries Complain About the Course'

Some of their work has been bonkers. The rough has been insane. Miss the fairway by three or four yards and you're hacking out. Skill doesn't come into it. The journeyman and the genius have but one option in the long stuff at Oakland Hills. It's the great lev...

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